


so leave me in the cold (wait until the snow covers me up)

by ladykestrel



Category: The Winner's Trilogy - Marie Rutkoski
Genre: Alternative Ending - The Winner's Curse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4689983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykestrel/pseuds/ladykestrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an alternative ending to the winner's curse.</p>
<p>or; kestrel’s message did not get there in time, the city walls were breached and blood was shed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so leave me in the cold (wait until the snow covers me up)

Somebody screamed his name. Arin turned and saw Kestrel. She was running toward him, shoving the mass of bodies and metal, sprinkling her delicate skin with red. Arin hoped none of the blood on Kestrel was hers.

He looked at her, and wanted to stay locked in her gaze forever. 

Her eyes contained the universe. He wanted to drown in it, in them. He wanted Kestrel’s eyes to devour him whole, eat him alive, as if he were not human, as if he were not made of nerve endings and tight muscles. 

Swords clanked, and a sting in Arin’s side drew his attention away from her. Her swiftly moved before a more serious blow could catch him, turned the sword in his hand and prepared to swing. In the distance, a horse shrieked and fell to the ground in a thump. Arin thought of Javelin as he ran his sword through the Valorian’s stomach. 

The battle waged on and Arin lost sight of Kestrel. His head kept turning around the slaughter in search of the familiar golden hair, but couldn’t loose concentration for long, lest he lost hold of himself as well. Arin quite liked where his head was, resting upon his shoulders, and all his insides intact.

The weapon was like an extension of his hand, ironically forged by it as well. Around him, bodies were falling, Herrani and Valorians alike, shouts and cries echoing in the winter air. Snow had begun falling, too, melting upon meeting with the not yet cold flesh of the dead. The air had sharp teeth, yet Arin could not feel the bite of it, too enthralled in the heat of battle, spearing through the enemy. His thoughts clouded, thawed like fallen snowflakes. A yell made him whirl around, fast enough to face the edge of a sword and an enraged Valorian soldier. Steel clashed against steel with matching strength. Then a sword fell, slipping through tightly squeezed fingertips. Arin’s face would be cut in half, a blink and the fight would be over for him, as strikingly as it had begun. He felt warmth on his face, saw its colour, but his eyes refused to witness. The soldier sputtered more blood on Arin’s face before dropping to his knees, a steel, pointed end poking through his middle. Arin looked up to see a Herrani man, his face somehow familiar, he saw him pull out the bloody sword from the Valorian. Arin nodded his gratitude and bent to pick up his own. A sharp pain sliced through his outstretched arm. Arin hissed and dropped the hilt.

“Pick it up,” said a deep voice. Despite speaking in Valorian, Arin recognized the timbre, he heard the words and thought of low lights and prison bars. His hand wrapped around the hilt of the sword, ignoring the now bleeding cut, and Arin turned, coming face to face with his former master. “It is in your best interest for your swordsmanship to be as good as your forgery.” General Trajan took a fighting stance, ready for a duel. Arin’s skills were mediocre, at best, and the god of luck had been on his side in this battle. Standing before the raised tip of the general’s blade, Arin knew he would need more than the god’s assistance in order to keep on breathing. 

Trajan swung. Arin ducked, slashing at the general’s leg. If the cut hurt, he did not let on. The Valorian man pinned Arin under his sword in an instant, before Arin could scramble, while his foot stepped on the hand holding the hilt. Arin watched as Kestrel’s father stepped closer, digging the sword tip deeper into Arin’s throat. He did not look away.

The general’s hold wavered, momentarily distracted. Arin took the chance to roll away, knocking the man’s weapon away and kicking at the leg he previously had cut. Trajan buckled, now on standing on one knee. This time it was Arin holding him at the sword’s tip. Yet the general’s reputation preceded him, and he maneuvered his way out of Arin’s hold. They were not as close as for hand to hand combat, a game of swinging and avoiding. Arin could still feel the butchered soldier’s blood, now dried, painting his face feral. It was as if it drove him wild, the sight of his people falling driving him wilder, that in a moment of blind rage, Arin roared and swung. The general attacked simultaneously, but Arin was too quick, digging his own blade into Trajan’s chest. 

Then time slowed, almost to a stop. Arin watched as the general clutched his chest, his face falling, then his body.

A girl was screaming. Arin realised she had been screaming the entire time. “No!” Kestrel wailed, rushing to her father’s side. She embraced him with her thin hands, eyes shedding tears like crystals. Kestrel was whispering something, her lips moving rapidly, as she clutched her father closer, rocking back and forth. In the background, the slaughter continued, blood was still spilled, and nobody payed attention to a girl weeping over yet another dead man, and a boy, who stood and watched, rooted to the ground.

“I love you, papa,” Kestrel was saying. 

Time snapped forward again, striking Arin with the reality of what he’d done as hard as a blow. He stood, rooted to the ground, unable to move, watching as general Trajan took his final breaths. The screams of the slain and the shouts of the  vanquishers dulled, as if Arin were hearing them through a thick wall. His vision narrowed down to Kestrel and her father, the rest was blur.

Arin couldn’t tell when Kestrel had gotten up, he only noticed when she was standing two feet in front of him, unsheathing her dagger. The look on her face told Arin this was no longer the Kestrel he’d known. _The perfect name for a warrior girl_ , she’d once told him. 

“Fight me,” she said. Arin dropped his sword, relief flooding in between his fingers where they’d dug into the hilt.

“No.”   


Kestrel swung with her dagger. Arin stepped back. Her movements were clumsy, made clumsier by rage. “Stop this,” he told Kestrel.

“Pick up your weapon,” she hissed at him.  


“Kestrel, you’re not thinking!” She swung at him in response. Arin caught her wrist just as the dagger pressed closely to his throat.

“Do it then,” he challenged her. “End this. Finish what your father started.”

Kestrel was looking at him now. They stood there, Arin holding her wrist, Kestrel’s amber eyes digging into his. “Go on,” Arin said. “Avenge him.” His voice was low and rough, a tiger’s growl. Kestrel’s hand wavered the slightest, her eyes glittering like a lake’s surface. She looked away.

A horn blasted through the battlefield, halting the bloodshed. Arin’s vision widened, regaining notice of the movements around them. Kestrel glanced at him again, her expression unreadable, her eyes hard, before stepping back. She walked away. It was like she had stabbed him after all. 

Later, Arin learnt of the emperor’s generosity. He received his people’s freedom on a piece of paper, delivered with an invitation. There was to be a royal wedding in the month to come, after mourning the loss of Valoria’s esteemed general and a beloved father.

Kestrel had made her choice.

**Author's Note:**

> so first off to apologize, action/fast moving scenes are my weakness.. i tried to a lot of things here, and imply even more, but i don't know if it shows. still, i hope you enjoyed, nonetheless. (:
> 
> +title is from landfill by daughter;


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